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Two years ago today, our Colorado community was rocked by the abduction and murder of a 10-year old girl who had dreams of being a cheerleader in junior high school and loved the color purple. Jessica Ridgeway was taken on her way to school and the community still grapples with the tragedy.

This nightmare for the community resulted in something positive, it sparked Lassy Project, which honors Jessica’s memory every day by building safer communities, protecting children and by combining social impact and technology.

Sarah Ridgeway, Jessica’s mother, has been a supporter of the Lassy Project since its founding and works every day as a part of the Lassy Project staff to encourage communities to utilize the free app.

“Through everything, we have had the constant support of our community. When Jessica was missing there were hundreds of people that came to our side to help with the search. There is a community of people out there that care enough to want to help in times of need, and that is why I know Lassy Project is absolutely critical to preventing future child abductions.”

Lassy Project CEO and Co-Founder John Guydon remembers wanting to do something upon hearing about Jessica’s disappearance. “I’m a father of three. I cannot imagine the helplessness that a parent feels when their child doesn’t come home and precious minutes are ticking by. I thought there has to be something that can help solve this problem – something that can give parents, friends and neighbors some control in such a helpless situation. And that’s when the Lassy Project began to come together.”

Lassy Project is a free service that gives parents and guardians the ability to notify an entire local community about their missing child in seconds. With the single push of a button, parents can mobilize a trusted group of family, friends and neighbors immediately to help with their search.

Jessica is a daily reminder of the work done by Lassy Project staff and it’s supporters. In fact, even the new Lassy Project logo was inspired by Jessica who was always dancing and singing. Sarah remembers how she would share her new cheerleading routines every time she returned home from her junior cheerleading class with the Stanley Lake High School cheerleaders.

The megaphone, used by cheerleading teams around the world, was chosen as the logo as it is also a symbol to our communities to raise their voices and become a part of the solution. By calling out to our family, friends and neighbors and rallying our loved ones to become a part of the Lassy Project, we have the power to find lost, missing and abducted children.

In honor of Jessica and the thousands of other missing children, we ask that you become a part of Lassy Project and support our efforts to protect our children and build safe communities. Join Lassy Project today by signing up for free, expanding your village and spreading the word starting at www.LassyProject.com.

The Lassy Project is LIVE in the App Store with some incredible new features

On September 22, 2014, Lassy Project launched the latest version of our free app in the Apple App Store (Android version coming soon!) This updated version is a direct result of customer and community feedback over the last month.

Whether you’re new to Lassy Project or are an experienced user, read below to see what’s new, what’s changed and what you can do to help us continue expanding to communities across the nation.
Together we are building a community that keeps our children safe!

What’s New

Lassy Villages

A Lassy Village is a trusted group of friends, family members and neighbors, that you hand select. It is the most important asset you have if your child goes missing.

Expand your Village

One village, your personal contacts, your trusted network.
Now you have one village and you decide who to invite. Do this by selecting as many contacts as you wish. A larger village ensures more people will receive the alert should your child go missing.

Manage your Village

A village is only as strong as your contacts. Manage who will receive alerts if your child ever goes missing.

Manage Membership in Other Villages

There is no limit to the number of Lassy Villages you can belong to. You can also join and leave villages as your life changes and grows.

Child Profiles

Add child profiles

You can now create a profile for every child in your care. This is the profile that will be shared with your village if ever needed. Simply upload a photo and enter vital information about your child.

Manage child profiles

Change photos, update information and manage the number of child profiles you have in your account with a few simple taps.

Escalate your Alert

The newest function, you can now spread the word to your Lassy Village by creating an alert if you believe that your child is missing.

Your most powerful asset is your Lassy Village and sending an alert can engage your trusted network to help find your child. If you escalate an alert about a missing child, it will only be sent to the people that joined your Lassy Village.

Alerts can also be sent to the larger Lassy Village. Lassy Project can escalate your alert to additional people in the area should extra reinforcements be needed.

What’s Next? Village Growth

The more people that download Lassy Project the safer our communities will be. Help us by encouraging everyone you know to sign up for Lassy Project.

When it comes to a missing child, every second counts. The Lassy Project is a FREE app that gives parents and guardians the ability to notify an entire local community about their missing child in seconds. Together, we are helping to bring missing children home through the power of our communities.

We LOVE feedback!Every new update produces some changes and we want to know what you think! See something that you love or question? Tell us!

We have been getting tons of great feedback from all of our wonderful users. Keep it coming!

Because of you, we’re rolling out some changes over the next several weeks. Here are a few we are pretty excited about.

1 – New Look – Get ready for a whole new look on our site and mobile apps (sneak peak below). The logo is extra special to us because Jessica, the precious little girl that inspired Lassy Project, loved cheer; so we decided to honor her in this special way.

2 – Build Your Village – By far one of the most popular requests; you will have the ability to create your own “Personal Village” full of hand-selected friends, family, and neighbors. Now if you can’t find your child, but are not ready to alert the entire community you can alert your “Personal Village.” However if the situation requires more assistance, we can help you easily escalate to the “Super Village.” This “Super Village” is comprised of all the personal villages in the surrounding area. It’s this grouping of personal villages that creates the most powerful search and rescue team for you instantly.

3 – Child Profile – You will soon have the ability to create profiles for your children and escalate alerts for them if necessary, all right from your smartphone. Even if your child does not have a smart phone or a GPS device, you will still be able to escalate to villagers should your child ever be missing.

“This is a promising new tool for parents to use in keeping track of their children” said Frederick Police Chief Gary Barbour.

Frederick, CO – The Lassy Project™, a free smartphone app that helps prevent child abductions, the Town of Frederick and their Police Department are partnering to give parents the peace of mind that their children can travel safely throughout the community.

The Lassy Project™ is relentlessly focused on preventing child abductions. Using a patented combination of GPS, SMS, and crowd-sourcing technology, this program keeps kids safe by immediately alerting parents via text message if their child deviates from their usual routes to places like school or a friend’s house, then, if the child is missing, providing them the ability to press a button and mobilize hundreds of neighbors and community members in seconds to help. This group of community members is called the ‘Lassy Village™’. Every Frederick Police Officer is now in the village and encouraging the rest of the community to join them.

Frederick Police Chief Gary Barbour

During the month of July the entire Frederick police force were trained on how to best utilize the app and register it on all of their cell phones. In this collaborative project, the Town of Frederick Police Department is helping to enroll as many members of the Frederick community as possible into the Village – including parents, community members, first responders, and local businesses. The goal is to grow the Lassy Village™ of Frederick as large as possible. To join the village, simply download and register the Lassy Project app from your app store.

“Getting a message out in seconds to hundreds of individuals right near the area could make the difference between finding the child and not finding the child,” said John Guydon, Co-Founder of The Lassy Project™. “We are honored to be supported by the Frederick Police Department and look forward to working with them to grow the Lassy Village in their community. The bigger the Village, the safer the kids. We are grateful that Frederick embrace this vision for their community.”

“This is a promising new tool for parents to use in keeping track of their children” said Frederick Police Chief Gary Barbour. “It is easy to load onto a smart phone and to use. It provides a very fast way to call for help from others who are on the system. I suggest that interested parents look at the presentations on the website and then decide whether to use it.”

About The Lassy Project™
The Lassy Project™ (www.thelassyproject.com) is a free smartphone app that allows parents to create different routes that their kids commonly take such as walking to school. If the child strays from the designated path then an alert is immediately sent to the parents phone via text message. The parent can then choose to call the child and investigate. If the child is safe, the parent can dismiss the alert. But if there is a problem and the child goes missing, the parent can push a single button to activate the most powerful search and rescue team on the planet – The Lassy Village™. This is a group of local community members and other parents who will receive an alert to begin search efforts within seconds near the child’s last known location. To help make The Lassy Project™ successful, join the Lassy Village™ by downloading and registering the FREE smart phone application, to ensure that you are alerted when a child goes missing in your area. For more information, visit http://www.thelassyproject.com

About The Frederick, Colorado
Frederick is a vibrant and growing community along the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains that strives to preserve our small town feel and community togetherness as they grow. For more information, visit http://www.frederickco.gov/

Frederick Police Department is here to protect our community through the preventing of crime, the apprehension of offenders, the recovery and return of property, traffic safety and exemplary service to the public. A well-trained team of officers efficient use of resources, and timely response to calls for service are equally important to this effort.

“This is a promising new tool for parents to use in keeping track of their children” said Frederick Police Chief Gary Barbour.

Frederick, CO – The Lassy Project™, a free smartphone app that helps prevent child abductions, the Town of Frederick and their Police Department are partnering to give parents the peace of mind that their children can travel safely throughout the community.

The Lassy Project™ is relentlessly focused on preventing child abductions. Using a patented combination of GPS, SMS, and crowd-sourcing technology, this program keeps kids safe by immediately alerting parents via text message if their child deviates from their usual routes to places like school or a friend’s house, then, if the child is missing, providing them the ability to press a button and mobilize hundreds of neighbors and community members in seconds to help. This group of community members is called the ‘Lassy Village™’. Every Frederick Police Officer is now in the village and encouraging the rest of the community to join them.

Frederick Police Chief Gary Barbour

During the month of July the entire Frederick police force were trained on how to best utilize the app and register it on all of their cell phones. In this collaborative project, the Town of Frederick Police Department is helping to enroll as many members of the Frederick community as possible into the Village – including parents, community members, first responders, and local businesses. The goal is to grow the Lassy Village™ of Frederick as large as possible. To join the village, simply download and register the Lassy Project app from your app store.

“Getting a message out in seconds to hundreds of individuals right near the area could make the difference between finding the child and not finding the child,” said John Guydon, Co-Founder of The Lassy Project™. “We are honored to be supported by the Frederick Police Department and look forward to working with them to grow the Lassy Village in their community. The bigger the Village, the safer the kids. We are grateful that Frederick embrace this vision for their community.”

“This is a promising new tool for parents to use in keeping track of their children” said Frederick Police Chief Gary Barbour. “It is easy to load onto a smart phone and to use. It provides a very fast way to call for help from others who are on the system. I suggest that interested parents look at the presentations on the website and then decide whether to use it.”

About The Lassy Project™
The Lassy Project™ (www.thelassyproject.com) is a free smartphone app that allows parents to create different routes that their kids commonly take such as walking to school. If the child strays from the designated path then an alert is immediately sent to the parents phone via text message. The parent can then choose to call the child and investigate. If the child is safe, the parent can dismiss the alert. But if there is a problem and the child goes missing, the parent can push a single button to activate the most powerful search and rescue team on the planet – The Lassy Village™. This is a group of local community members and other parents who will receive an alert to begin search efforts within seconds near the child’s last known location. To help make The Lassy Project™ successful, join the Lassy Village™ by downloading and registering the FREE smart phone application, to ensure that you are alerted when a child goes missing in your area. For more information, visit http://www.thelassyproject.com

About The Frederick, Colorado
Frederick is a vibrant and growing community along the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains that strives to preserve our small town feel and community togetherness as they grow. For more information, visit http://www.frederickco.gov/

Frederick Police Department is here to protect our community through the preventing of crime, the apprehension of offenders, the recovery and return of property, traffic safety and exemplary service to the public. A well-trained team of officers efficient use of resources, and timely response to calls for service are equally important to this effort.

Update: iOs update has been released on 8/1. Feature is now on iOS & Android apps.

We heard you loud and clear:

“When I explicitly plan to have my child go off course, I should have the ability to temporarily pause tracking to conserve battery”

Makes sense. So you can now pause the tracking of your child’s phone whenever you are with them and have no need for us to keep an eye out. Not to worry, if you forget to hit the switch to resume tracking the system will automatically turn on and resume tracking after 24 hours of pausing.

How does it work?

We developed this update to be simple, safe, and secure. We want to ensure that a parent is always involved with the process, preventing children from turning it on and off by themselves. The following steps explain how to turn off tracking:

To turn off (pause) tracking

Make sure the child’s phone is located inside of a safe zone.

Open the Lassy Project app on the child’s phone and click the “Off – On” toggle switch.

A confirmation screen will pop-up confirming that a security code was sent to the parent’s phone via text message, click “OK” .

A form will appear where parents must enter the password they use to access their Lassy Project account and the security code they just received. Click “Submit.”

Once the parent’s phone receives a text message saying the child “is no longer being tracked”, the process is complete.

To turn on the tracking

Make sure the child’s phone is located inside of a safe zone.

Open the Lassy Project app on the child’s phone, and click the “Off – On” toggle switch. This turns the tracking back on.

Once the parent’s phone receives a text message saying the child “is being tracked”, the process is complete.

The Community Challenge events are designed to test how quickly your city can find a missing child. It is similar to a scavenger hunt where community members will be alerted of “the missing” via the FREE Lassy Project app and can compete against each other in a race for valuable prizes. This is a free event and the only action a person must take to participate is to download and register our FREE app here. Or, go to http://www.TheLassyProject.com and click ‘Join The Village.’

Hailey, ID is conducting a Community Challenge event, so spread the word!

The Community Challenge events are designed to test how quickly your city can find a missing child. It is similar to a scavenger hunt where community members will be alerted of “the missing” via the FREE Lassy Project app and can compete against each other in a race for valuable prizes. This is a free event and the only action a person must take to participate is to download and register our FREE app here. Or, go to http://www.TheLassyProject.com and click ‘Join The Village.’

Hailey, ID is conducting a Community Challenge event, so spread the word!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The city of Westminster, Colorado partners with the Lassy Project™ to keep kids safe.

The Lassy Project™ and the city of Westminster are making Westminster safer for our kids and equipping residents with the tools they need to prevent child abductions.

Westminster, CO – The Lassy Project™, a free smartphone app that helps prevent child abductions, and the city of Westminster Police Department are partnering to give parents the peace of mind that their children can travel safely throughout the community.

After the abduction and murder of Jessica Ridgeway, 3 friends came together and developed The Lassy Project™ which is relentlessly focused on preventing child abductions. Using a patented combination of GPS, SMS, and crowd-sourcing technology, this program keeps kids safe by immediately alerting parents via text message if their child deviates from their usual routes to places like school or a friend’s house, then, if the child is missing, providing them the ability to press a button and mobilize hundreds of neighbors and community members in seconds to help. This group of community members is called the ‘Lassy Village™’. Westminster Police Officers are now in the village and encouraging the rest of the community to join them.

During the week of June 16, 2014, The Lassy Project™ team spoke with and trained the Westminster Police Department employees and officers on how to best utilize the app and ensure that the app is registered on each of their phones. In this collaborative project, the Westminster Police Department is helping to enroll as many members of the Westminster community as possible into the Village – including parents, community members, first responders, and local businesses… The goal is to grow the Lassy Village™ of Westminster as large as possible. To join the village, simply go http://www.thelassyproject.com and select the “join the village” button.

“Getting a message out in seconds to hundreds of individuals right near the area could make the difference between finding the child and not finding the child,” said John Guydon, Co-Founder of The Lassy Project™. “We are honored to be supported by the Westminster Police Department and look forward to working with them to grow the Lassy Village in their community. The bigger the Village, the safer the kids. We are grateful that Westminster embrace this vision for their community.”

About The Lassy Project™
The Lassy Project™ is a free smartphone app that allows parents to create different routes that their kids commonly take such as walking to school. If the child strays from the designated path then an alert is immediately sent to the parents phone via text message. The parent can then choose to call the child and investigate. If the child is safe, the parent can dismiss the alert. But if there is a problem and the child goes missing, the parent can push a single button to activate the most powerful search and rescue team on the planet – The Lassy Village™. This is a group of local community members and other parents who will receive an alert to begin search efforts within seconds near the child’s last known location. To help make The Lassy Project™ successful, join the Lassy Village™ to ensure that you are alerted when a child goes missing in your area. For more information, visit The Lassy Project website here.

About The Westminster Police Department
The police department is organized into three divisions; administration, special services and patrol services. The police department is lead by Police Chief Lee Birk and is comprised of 183 sworn officers and 79.6 non-sworn employees. For more information, visit their website here.

About Jessica Ridgeway
Jessica was kidnapped on her way to school on October 5, 2012. Her body was found five days later in a field in Arvada. Authorities say Jessica’s killer, then 17, confessed to the kidnapping and slaying. He was arrested October 23. Westminster Police Department was the reporting agency for this case, devoting hundreds of man-hours to seek justice for Jessica. For more information, visit the Jessica Ridgeway Legacy website here.